Petitions make next stop

In the next few days, the Thurston County Auditor’s office will take delivery of petitions, bearing more than 4000 signatures, from people opposed to the City of Olympia’s rezone of the Fourth and Fifth Avenue isthmus.

Opponents of the proposed rezone in building heights are calling for the city to do a feasibility study of acquiring the land for a park; destroying the Capitol Center building; and partnering with the State of Washington.

Opponents of the project need 3800 valid signatures of registered voters in the City of Olympia.  The auditor’s office will check every one of the 4000 signatures to determine if they are valid.

Although they’ve never done this before the auditor’s office is confident that its new computerized system will be up to the task.  Once it’s re-programed to check only for Olympia voters, each petition will be hand fed into the computer, which will  color red any invalid signature.   

Once they receive the petitions, the auditor’s office expects to take about three days to complete the task before declaring the validity of the petition.